An Enthusiastic Pianist

May 2005. Fire Island, NY.

October 2003. Starting to learn piano.

For the first two years of Yiran’s piano learning, daddy was her teacher and he “taught her well”, according to her present teacher. For Yiran, playing the piano is only natural and fair (because Luran plays so much). Rarely does she need any encouragement or enticement to practice, which she does at least 30 minutes each day. Presently, she is working on major and minor scales for three octaves, Mozart’s Minuet from Don Giovanni, and fancy dynamics such as “allegretto grazioso”. She had learned sixteenth notes before she knew how to read or write any fraction. Maybe because she is a good student, the piano teacher is giving her more and more challenging homework recently. Mommy had attempted to learn music along with Yiran but it quickly became hopelessly obvious that Yiran is learning at a much faster pace and with much higher quality.

Every time we entertain our guests, Yiran would volunteer to be the first one to play the piano. The first time she played for a big audience was when she just turned 6, at a Long Island Filipino-American art festival, where she played “Malaguenia” and “Blue Scales.” After her performance, instead of returning to the backstage as rehearsed, she walked around the piano to the center front of the stage, did a curtsy, her face wearing a pleasant smile. The audience responded with roaring applause.